


It happened like this for Gimli

by SaranelStuff



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: I don't know what I'm doing, M/M, Soulmates, This is my very first work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6834505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaranelStuff/pseuds/SaranelStuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then the elf had smile and answered his lack of thanks by a smug smile and a teasing “You’re welcome” and Gimli swore to himself that he’d sooner plant his axe in his own head than think about any quality Legolas might have ever again!</p>
            </blockquote>





	It happened like this for Gimli

**Author's Note:**

> Hello !  
> Before reading this you need to know that this is my very first work in English (which is not my native language) so I am very sorry for the mistake I made (Because I'm sure there is a lot.)  
> I hope you still enjoy reading.  
> Have a nice moment !

It happened like this for Gimli : one moment Legolas was just an elf he rather liked – which was, in itself, a pretty uncommon thing for him – the next it was like he had hung the moon. 

It happened like this, but it would be a lie to say it was the beginning. It had started a lot sooner, probably not when they were in Rivendell, not even when they left it. No, if someone asked Gimli, he’d say it all started in Moria, when the doors collapsed and for a while, the dwarf thought he saw a lock of blonde hair caught underneath it. His heart had leaped and for a second the air refused to enter his lungs. Then the wizards had provided some light, Gimli had seen the elf right behind Aragorn and he had cursed himself in Khuzdul before grabbing his axe more fiercely and moving on. They didn’t have time for this, he told himself. 

Then they had fought orcs. Aragorn had flee to Boromir’s help leaving Gimli and Legolas to fight off the rest. Gimli was a warrior, battles didn’t scare him ! Death was always a possibility – one he’d rather escape, mind you ! – but one he was ready to face. Why then, _why_ was he so afraid at this very moment ? His eyes darting away from his own battle to watch the elf fire arrow after arrow, killing two enemies at a time while he had trouble sticking his axe in the skull of this Eru damn orc! This, this right there was why ! That elf had no sense of preservation whatsoever ! While firing his stupid arrows he left his back unprotected and _that_ was a orc crawling behind him and getting ready to stab the elf ...  
Well not on Gimli’s watch ! He threw one of his smaller axes, hitting his target right in the forehead, sending the damn creature on the ground where it didn’t move again.  
But this had also put Gimli in a nasty position – read : he found himself on the ground too, with an orc blade at his throat and all of this FOR AN ELF ! Why was he so stupid ? His father taught him better than that ! It was bound to fail, he told himself then. Bound to break from the beginning! He had been foolish to hope, to believe that somehow they could have change things. But hope was all he had. “All you can ever do, is try your best.” Wise words from a great dwarf king he once knew. Wise words that he had try to live by. He was about to die from the hand of a bloody orc, was this the best he had to give? His father would be ashamed. Gimli was ashamed.  
But he didn’t die, instead the orc found itself with an arrow in the eye, dead before he could give the mortal blow and Legolas stood in its place. Gimli embraced the new sight with a sigh of relief and a strange though of : He is rather handsome for a tree shagger !... Well, there had been an orc in front of him right before, he could be forgiven for this moment of weakness. He’d just try and not think about the flowing blond hair and sparkling blue eyes linking them with the word “Handsome” again!  
Then the elf had smile and answered his lack of thanks by a smug smile and a teasing “You’re welcome” and Gimli swore to himself that he’d sooner plant his axe in his own head than think about any quality Legolas might have ever again! 

But quality seemed to pop up out of nowhere. First he had endurance, Gimli was panting, finding himself out of breath more than once while the elf was barely sweating ! Legolas was also very fast. “Well,” Gimli told himself, “with those blasted long legs of his, of course he can be fast !” But he was somehow always waiting for Gimli, calling out encouragement, little : “Come on Gimli !” and “Just breathe !” and the dwarf – instead of throwing a rock at the blonde’s head and telling him to just breathe through it like it would solve his concussion ! – took comfort in knowing that the elf was never too far ahead… Purely because he wouldn’t like being distanced by an elf ! Not because he liked his company or the small smiles he threw in his direction when the dwarf caught up with him ! 

And suddenly, without really understanding anything, Gimli found himself half hidden behind Legolas – whose bum was almost at eyes level and Gimli had to at least glance at it and _damn_ – who had draw an arrow and was now threatening the lead of a thousand riders to protect Gimli’s honor ?  
“You would die before your stoke fell!”  
A threat, not even a covered one ! An expression of pure fury sat on the prince’s face and Gimli didn’t know what to make of it. Fortunately, Aragorn was the peacekeeper and he knew exactly what to do. But Gimli kept his eyes fixed on Legolas who, in return, refused to meet his gaze, watching the white horse they had been given and murmuring soothing thing to it.  
Of course he was gonna ride with the elf ! And of course the elf had to lift him on the damn horse because Gimli couldn’t ride anything else than a goat or a pony ! Now this was just embarrassing !  
But the dwarf never got time to properly feel ashamed, not when the smoke of the fire where his friends might have been thrown floated not ten feet away.  
His heart leaped out of his chest when he found the belt and sank to the ground. Darkness took old of his entire behind and for a while all he could see was the images of the agony the Hobbits must have been put through. Not even a small hope lingered. The world had lost its taste, its colors. All songs had stopped. Life was suspended.  
And then light, and music, and what felt like the sweet warmth of the sun on a winter’s morning. And colors so bright they almost blinded him. And through it all a voice: soothing and deep, the wind stealing the words before he could make out their sense. Had he been lucid he would have realized that he didn’t speak Sindarin and would never be able to know what had pulled him back from the darkest places of his mind he had ever entered. But he wasn’t and so Gimli found himself angry at the wind for stealing what was rightfully his!  
Aragorn’s tone brought him back to his senses and the hunt started once again. 

The battle was possibly the worst thing Gimli experienced in his life. He was a warrior, a Dwarf warrior and he had seen battles, killed orcs but… never like this, never that much. He hadn’t seen them approach and later was too caught up in the fight to actually care. Perhaps this was why he still lived when so many had died. So many…   
He had recognized some of the men. He had fought with them, laughed with them. They had been brother in arms, even if just for one night. He was mourning them without actually crying. Gimli considered himself lucky : to escape alive, of course, and to have the rest of his company relatively intact but also and surprisingly so, for Legolas. Their little counting game had kept him focus. Hearing Legolas’ voice shouting a number every so often was enough for Gimli to know he was alive. And that had been a relief.  
At the end of the battle, when Legolas had come bragging about “forty two !” he couldn’t help it. His own number had been Thirty nine. Not bad in itself, but he wasn’t about to let the pointy eared idiot outrun him again! The lie had come easy on his tongue and the look on the elf’s face had made it worth it. The playful smile on his lips had also made it worth being almost shot in the hand. Almost.  
He had stopped promising himself anything related to Legolas. And no matter how much he wanted to act as if he didn’t care, he couldn’t stop the smile he gave the elf when he picked him up and helped him on the horse. They probably could have been given another one for just Gimli. Or even better, a pony. But Legolas didn’t seem to mind riding with him so Gimli wasn’t about to make an objection. And if his hold on the prince’s waist tightened a bit for a while, as if the forest they were going through would somehow reach wooden fingers and steal the archer away, well it wasn’t anyone’s business! 

Scratch that. Scratch it all and throw it in the fire! He was going to kill the elf himself. There he was, standing in his majestic beauty, calmly outrunning him again. Except this time, it was a damn drinking contest ! A dwarf beaten by an elf at a drinking contest ? This felt like the beginning of a very bad joke. What had his life become? And of course, as if it wasn’t embarrassing enough, said elf had put him to bed! TO BED!   
He hated him. Hated him, hated him, hated him…  
Gimli, too caught up in his own drunken mind hadn’t noticed it but Legolas lingered. Sitting on the bed, he had made sure the dwarf drank water trying to drown the headache he’d probably have tomorrow. The elf’s hand had found its way in Gimli’s and he had marveled at the contrast of it. His own hand soft and lean where the dwarf’s one was thick and calloused. He found himself holding on the short fingers, liking the ruggedness of them.  
In the morning he was gone and all Gimli remembered was a humiliating defeat and a tingling in his fingers. 

The paths of the dead had been a terrible idea. First of all who in their right mind entered a place named : the paths of the dead ? Desperate people, and apparently they were desperate people. He hated it ! Underground was his thing, but he found that he didn’t quite like this kind of underground! Once again, Legolas seemed to have an advantage on him : he could actually see the ghosts !   
“I see shapes of man and of horses.”  
“Where ?”  
“Pale banners like shreds of clouds…”  
And “really ?” Gimli thought, “Poetry at a time like this ? Perhaps I should take out my books and quill and write it down as the Last words of the dead” Because clearly, that’s what they were going to be in a few moments : dead.  
“They have been summoned.”  
Finally, a piece of valuable information. Well, he would have like a more positive information but he’d make do. He was a dwarf ! He had seen worse and… Wait where was that blasted elf now ?  
“Legolas !”  
Watching the hand shaped smoke reach for the prince had been hard. Gimli had feared poison in their touch, he had feared death for his friends… And then he had to fear for himself because they were reaching for him too!  
“Do not look down.”  
Great ! Now he wanted to look down. Thanks!  
The skulls under his feet had been disgusting but this was the least of his worry.  
What actually worried him was said skulls crawling on top of them, trying to bury them alive!  
He wanted to turn around and ask Legolas if he had a final line for his “Poem of the dead” but he was running and out of breath and there would hopefully be a time for that later. He hoped. He really, really hoped ! 

There wasn’t. Not because they didn’t get out alive but because as soon as they were out, any joke he had in mind left him. The sight in front of him was one who made him despair. They were going to lose this war. There was no way out of it. Their only hope had been inside that blasted mountain and they had made it clear what they thought of Aragorn’s demand. No, there was nothing left now, just their honor, their courage and a foolish hope.   
Aragorn fell to his knee and the foolish hope vanished.  
Gimli was so focused on the boats that he didn’t realize the ghost was now behind him until he heard that fateful “We fight”. And hope didn’t seem so foolish after all. 

Stopping the boats was the funny part, at least in Gimli’s opinion. He was impatiently waiting to join the big battle happening in Gondor and couldn’t wait to see the orc’s faces once their realized they were going to lose. But before that, he could have a little bit of fun and Aragorn just provided the best occasion.   
“Mind your aim !” He exclaimed while discreetly giving the bow a jolt just as the arrow bolted. The look of utter betrayal on Legolas’ face was priceless. But it was nothing compared to the heartwarming smile that followed. Gimli would have given anything to be able to engrave it in his memory, to be able to see it every time he closed his eyes.  
If Legolas could have read his thought he would have laughed. He could almost hear his teasing : “Who’s being poetic now ?” 

And here he was now, about to fight a battle against the entirety of mordor with only about a hundred of men, to give the world a slight chance. He couldn’t believe it, yet here he was.   
“I never thought I’d die fighting side by side with an elf.” He grumbled.  
Joking, he could do joking. Legolas rarely laughed. He had offered Gimli smiles bright and warm but his laughs were so rare that he could almost forget the sound of them. So here, at the end of everything, Gimli was ready to try his hardest to earn one of those laughs. He’d give anything if it could be the sound he’d take with him to Mahal’s halls.  
“How about side by side with a friend ?”  
And everything fell into place. “Friend” perhaps this was the Elvish way or perhaps Legolas was trying to spare him. Spare him what exactly ? The realization that he had found his One in a pointy eared tree shagger or that said One was about to – probably but hopefully not ! – die in a terrible battle ?  
No, the archer’s question was an earnest one, he was sure of it! Legolas had never showed any kind of feeling or recognition of any sort. This was not the moment and certainly not the place to wonder about that! But Legolas was still there, waiting.  
Gimli looked into his eyes to find hope and infinite patience. And in that moment, he understood. Legolas had known, probably from the beginning. Or perhaps for Legolas the beginning started sooner than Gimli’s ! Perhaps he had waited for Gimli’s birth with an aching in his heart and a longing in his bone. Perhaps he had known for hundred years. It didn’t really matter. His blue eyes were fixed on Gimli, waiting for an answer.  
And Gimli, well he didn’t have to think about it at all.  
“Aye, I can do that.” 


End file.
